Showcasing a sister city

By R.A. Schuetz

Updated
10:14 pm EDT, Thursday, May 31, 2018

Director of NicaPhoto, Ronnie Mahr, describes the student photography behind the show, Look: NicaPhoto - Portraits of Nicaragua, at the 22 Haviland Gallery Wednesday, May 30, 2018, in Norwalk, Conn. NicaPhoto runs a educational program in Nagarote, Nicaragua, that benefits children in Norwalk's sister city. less

Director of NicaPhoto, Ronnie Mahr, describes the student photography behind the show, Look: NicaPhoto - Portraits of Nicaragua, at the 22 Haviland Gallery Wednesday, May 30, 2018, in Norwalk, Conn. NicaPhoto runs a educational program in Nagarote, Nicaragua, that benefits children in Norwalk's sister city. less

NORWALK — Two photographers arrived in Nagarote, Nicaragua — Norwalk’s sister city — this January with a large-format camera and powdered darkroom chemistry in their bags.

One week later, a group of students ages 8 through 18 had assembled a series of portraits, ranging from unposed domestic scenes to photographs capturing children’s sense of adventure.

Those pictures are on display at 22 Haviland Gallery, which will have its closing reception on Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m.

The exhibit is both a showcase of the students’ work and a fundraiser for NicaPhoto, the Norwalk-based nonprofit afterschool program that organized the workshop and also offers other educational programs throughout the year. All photos are for sale and proceeds fund future work at the nonprofit.

As Dennis Bradbury, the owner of the homey, incense-scented gallery, walked into the front room, she reflected on the space’s past.

“We’ve now had more than 140 shows and events here, and it’s been such a gift,” she said.

In fact, it was a photography show at the gallery that connected the founder of NicaPhoto to Nagarote about 13 years ago.

Bradbury was on the board of the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project, founded during the Contra War to provide aid. And at the show, Bradbury invited Ronnie Maher, a Brien McMahon graduate and freelance photographer, to get involved.

“I said, ‘You should come to a meeting,’” Bradbury recalled. “Next thing I knew, she had joined the board and moved to Nicaragua.”

Maher said that after getting to know people who lived in Nagarote through photography workshops and community service — she and others went out to take free professional portraits of families as Christmas gifts — she moved to the city with a shoestring budget to found NicaPhoto. The program has since expanded to provide education, art and personal development programs to over 100 students, with a waiting list of about 50 more.

“The idea is they start with us and continue with us until they complete their education,” Maher said. Already, about 10 of the students who started with NicaPhoto are in college, a huge milestone according to Maher.

“Some of them are the first in their families to graduate from high school. Some of them are the first to graduate from elementary school,” she explained. “So college is a really big step.”

The photo exhibit includes portraits of the students shot on a large-format camera. For the portraits, students collaborated with Lesley University Master of Fine Arts student Casey M. Cullen, the students planning the frame and pose and Cullen shooting the image. The students look beaming, contemplative, at ease. Maher pointed out one student, a senior, who plans to be an engineer; in his portraits, he sits cross-legged, a broad smile across his face.

In the back room are family portraits by Cullen, including a seamstress, sweatshop worker and cleaner, and Maher’s iPhone pictures of the half-acre garden where students learn about organic gardening and grow some of the produce included in the program’s free lunches.

Maher believes those free lunches could become increasingly important as economic consequences of civil unrest — which began as student protests against a proposed change to social security and spiraled into calls for greater democracy after police killed dozens of demonstrators — become felt.

“Nagarote has remained peaceful, thank God,” Maher said of the protests. “[But] if there’s more unemployment and the cost of food continues to go up, then the work we do becomes even more important,” she said.

Sponsors can fund the cost of lunch for one child for $10 dollars a month, or cover the cost of a scholarship for $100 a month. Those interested in giving can contact Maher at ronnie@nicaphoto.org.

Aside from free healthy hot meals and educational support through college, Maher said the program also provides stability during a time of political uncertainty. “And for us, there’s an importance to providing that sense of normalcy.”